Hello!

WordPress 6.5.4 RC1 is now available for testing. Various proposals are now live and open to community feedback. The feedback is essential to tackle the existing challenges. Also, the Studio the free and open-source local development tool from WordPress.com is now available for Windows users.

We’ve got some exciting news as our parent company Awsm Innovations just released a new theme on the repository called Nexara. The theme is suitable for creative professional, entrepreneur, or blogger, and provides the perfect canvas to bring your ideas to life.

Don’t forget to subscribe and listen to the podcast version of this newsletter on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts, where you can hear more details and discussions about these topics and more.

See you next week!

Team WP-CONTENT.CO

This weekly newsletter is kindly sponsored by Cloudways, Omnisend and WP Job Openings

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📰 WORDPRESS & AROUND

All the updates around WordPress and its closely related technologies

Current challenges of WordPress Events. Shaping the future

 Rocio Valdivia provided a brief overview of the current state of WordPress Events and the various challenges associated with it. A few questions have been put forth that require feedback from the community and can be seen as an attempt to tackle the existing challenges.

• WordPress 6.5.4 RC1 is now available: The Release Candidate 1 (RC1) is available for testing.
• How should we shape the future of the Plugin Review team?: Felipe Santos has shared a proposal with a few goals to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the Plugin Review team. The proposal is open to community feedback until June 17, 2024.
• Proposal: Learn WordPress content maintenance process: The proposal seeks to address the following question which was raised in the recent Training Team meeting, “what content are we obligated to leave on learn and until what version of WordPress do we need to support”. The current proposed solution is to adopt 5% baseline for content, which equates to supporting the last two versions of WordPress, create a content maintenance review process that is run twice a year, and triage GitHub for content issues which can be closed based on the new baseline. The feedback opportunity is open until June 13th, 2024.
• WordCamp Europe 2024: Mid-year update and Q&A with Matt Mullenweg: WordCamp Europe 2024 set to take place from June 13-15, will conclude with an exciting mid-year project update from WordPress Cofounder Matt Mullenweg, including a live Q&A session. The presentation will be streamed live on the WordPress YouTube channel.
• Studio: Now available for Windows: Studio, the free local WordPress development environment from WordPress.com is now available for Windows users.
• Google to honor new privacy laws and user opt-outs: Google is enabling Restricted Data Processing and honoring user opt-outs via Global Privacy Controls signals in light of new state laws.
• Google to limit AI overviews for “nonsensical” queries: Google addresses AI overview criticism and aims to improve accuracy. Nonsensical queries will no longer trigger AI overviews.
• Doubts emerge over alleged Google data leak: Many SEOs are coming to the conclusion that the alleged Google data leak was not a leak, did not contain ranking algorithm secrets, was five years out of date and it did not show anything new.

🗣️TALK OF THE TOWN

• Will WP Tavern be active anytime soon?: Justin Ferriman posted on X and reminded everyone about the inactive state of WP Tavern. Many users joined in on the discussion and expressed their views on the current state. The trial process to hire two new members concluded in March, but no update on the progress has been shared as of now.

🚨WEB SECURITY & VULNERABILITIES

A collection of web security and vulnerability news and updates for the past week

Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (May 20, 2024 to May 26, 2024)

There were 134 vulnerabilities disclosed in 110 plugins and 1 theme.

• Unauthenticated XSS vulnerability patched in Slider Revolution plugin: The vulnerability was recently patched and all users are to update to the latest version immediately. 
• WordPress vulnerability & patch roundup May 2024: Monthly vulnerability roundup report from Sucuri.
• WordPress vulnerability report — May 29, 2024: Weekly report from SolidWP.

🔌 NEW PLUGINS & THEMES

Be one of the first ones to explore some fresh plugins and themes

Nexara theme

Featuring 30+ meticulously crafted patterns, Nexara offers a seamless experience for building any type of website with ease.

• Dark Academia theme: A blog theme with Dark Academia aesthetics.
• OnyxPulse theme: A blog theme with Health Goth aesthetics.
• Search & Replace Everything plugin: The plugin allows users to search and replace text and images across their entire WordPress database with a simple, powerful interface.
• Edit Recent Edited Posts plugin: The plugin displays a link to the recent edited posts in the admin bar, where you can edit them.

💵 INVESTMENTS, ACQUISITIONS & PARTNERSHIPS

• AIOSEO has acquired LowFruits: AIOSEO has acquired LowFruits, a keyword research tool. LowFruits identifies weak spots in the SERPs, allowing you to target keywords with a higher chance of ranking.

👥 COMMUNITY NEWS

Updates and News from the WordPress Community

Travel grants for WordCamp Sydney 2024 sponsored by The Code Company

The Code Company has announced the sponsorship of ten travel grants, each worth $500 AUD, to support attendance at WordCamp Sydney 2024. The applications are open till June 30, 2024.

• WordPress is now powering Vox’s website: As a part of their 10th anniversary celebration, Vox now has a newly updated website powered by WordPress. Matt Mullenweg had responded earlier to Vox Media dropping their own CMS and migrating to WordPress.
• Introducing Profiles-as-a-Service and our new REST API: Gravatar with the new Profile-as-a-Service aims to move beyond the humble avatar and aiming to be the open platform of choice for publicly sharing all kinds of profile data — bios, interests, preferences, work history, social connections, and more. The new REST API has also been redesigned.
• Bluehost Creator Award 2023 winners announced: The winners of the Bluehost Creator Award 2023 have been announced. In the Creative Web Professionals category, the top three positions were bagged by Marcus Burnette, Asheesh Bhardwaj, and David Perez. In the Self Creators category, the top three are Mike McAlister, Alexandre Recchia, and Zed Chiang.
• Andy Keith will be stepping down from the role of CTO at Barn2 Plugins: Andy Keith has announced via X that at the end of June, he will be stepping down from the role of CTO at Barn2 Plugins and will take up an advisory role and leave the day-to-day operations to his wife and co-founder, Katie Keith.
• New video series from Brian Coords: 7 Tools for Modern WordPress Development is a free video series from Brian Coords, with one video every day for seven days, which will focus on providing a high-level overview of tools that advanced WordPress developers are using every day. Interested individuals can sign up to access the series.
• Gutenberg Speed Build Challenge at WordCamp Europe 2024: The Gutenberg Speed Build Challenge scheduled for June 14, 2024, at WordCamp Europe, hosted by Jamie Marsland will see the two contestants, Jessica Lyschik and Rich Tabor recreate a famous website, using only the WordPress Block Editor in 30 minutes.
• FluentCRM 2.9.0 released: The latest version introduces a new dynamic coupon creation feature, new contact bulk actions, enhancements to the company module, and more.
• Introducing WP Wonder Women Newsletter: A weekly newsletter curated by Michelle Frechette and Michele Butcher-Jones, highlighting the women and nonbinary folks in the WordPress ecosystem.
• TranslatePress has crossed 10 million downloads: Adi Spiac announced on X, that TranslatePress has achieved a milestone of having over 10 million downloads and is also nearing a total active installs of 400k.
• Cloudways has introduced a new automated malware cleanup with the new malware protection add-on: The new Malware Protection add-on, powered by Imunify360 is equipped with with RASP (Runtime Active Self Protection), which helps detect & eliminate threats at runtime by scanning files whenever changes are made, eliminating malicious code before it has a chance to cause damage to your apps.
• Hostinger 2023 financial results: In 2023, Hostinger’s consolidated revenue increased by 57% year-over-year to €110.2 million. The financial results were significantly influenced by the growth of the customer base, the expanding product line aligned with the development of artificial intelligence, the efficient management of marketing investments, and increasing operational efficiency. Hostinger also achieved its first year of EBITDA profitability, reaching € 2.4 million while maintaining positive cash flow.
• Ruth Kalinka receives the Yoast Care fund for her contribution to the WordPress community: Ruth Kalinka a member of the WordPress Community Team is the latest recipient of the Yoast Care Fund.

🔖 INTERESTING READS & PODCASTS

More blog posts and podcasts from WordPress Community you don’t want to miss

• The WordPress Media Corps: From The WP Minute
• The impact of WordPress mentorships and inclusion with Birgit, Hari, Kruper and Tobi: From Doo the Woo
• Unlocking your WordPress potential with Learn WordPress tools: From WordPress Briefing
• Adam Zielinski on how Playground is transforming WordPress website creation: From WP Tavern Jukebox
• How WordPress democratizes publishing & fuels an economy: From Speckyboy
• How WordPress scales for sudden website traffic surges: From Scale Consortium
• WP Engine refreshes its brand identity… with confidence: From WP BizDev
• My May in WordPress: From Aaron Jorbin
• An easy guide to getting more from AI-assisted content: From Redesign
• Renaming your WordPress plugin’s main file without deactivating your plugin: From Matt Cohen
• The basics of email marketing: From Yoast
• Core Web Vitals: WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Joomla, Duda, & Drupal: From Search Engine Journal

🛠 GUIDE ZONE – HOWTO’S and MORE

Handpicked fresh guides from WordPress circle

• A beginner’s guide to WordPress website file access: From Melapress
• How to easily set up Google Analytics: A beginner’s guide: From RankMath

📆 SAVE THE DATES

Do not miss a WordPress event ever again

• WordCamp Europe on 13-15 June 2024: The organizers have arranged for a free workshop for children during Contributor Day
• Uganda Website Projects Competition 2024 on July 5th, 2024: Organized under the theme, “Problem Solving With WordPress”, it is a dynamic next-gen event that brings together high school and university students. The call for sponsors and projects is now live.
• WordCamp Canada on July 11-13, 2024: The call for volunteers, and sponsors is now open.
• Stellar Spark on July 19, 2024: A free online event with a focus on growth, creativity, collaboration, and more. The call for speakers is now open.
• WordCamp US on 17-20 September 2024: The tickets are now available. You can now apply for The Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship.
• WordPress Accessibility Day on Oct 9-10, 2024: The call for speakers is now open.
• WordCamp Asia on February 20-22, 2025: The venue will be the Philippine International Convention Center, Manila, Philippines

🎁 WORDPRESS DEALS OF THE WEEK

Just the best deals of the week, again, handpicked by yours truly!

EXCLUSIVE DEALS

• 4 Months free offer on hosting plans of WP Engine (Coupon Code- FREEDOMTOCREATE)
• 15% off yearly plans at Videvo (Coupon Code – WPV15)

OTHER DEALS

• 40% off for 4 months on all hosting plans + 40 free migrations at Cloudways  (Coupon Code – BFCM4040)
• 53% off for NordLocker
• Up to 50% off on EchoRewards PRO.
• Up to 75% off on plugins, themes and hosting at WP Hive
• 50% off on the Thrive Suite yearly plan.
• 50% off Web Hosting Packages at StableHost (Coupon Code – 50OFFYEAR1)
• 80% off for plugins at WPPool
• Up to 77% off hosting plans at HostPapa
• 50% off for Advanced Giftcards for WooCommerce plugin
• Upto 55% off hosting plans at Nexcess
• 20% off for Fluent Forms plugin
• 50% off at Formidable Forms
• 20% off for FluentCRM plugin
• 50% off for WP Social Ninja plugin 
• Upto 95% off for PitchGround products 
• Upto 69% off WordPress Hosting plans at InMotion Hosting
• 83% off hosting plans at SiteGround
• 60% off at Hostgator India (Coupon Code- SUNSHINE)
• Up to 74% off at Liquid Web
• 52% off on Managed Dedicated Server Hosting at Liquid Web

Latest from WP-CONTENT.CO

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Team WP-CONTENT.CO

This weekly newsletter is kindly sponsored by Omnisend, Cloudways and WP Job Openings

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